ReviewIs antioxidant supplement beneficial? New avenue to explore

- Numerous failures of antioxidant supplement to combat diseases were reported.
- It is urgent to test whether antioxidants work or not in vivo.
- Real-time ROS/RNS imaging probes provides avenue to assess antioxidant efficacy in vivo.
- Barriers to overcome for future probes clinical translations were proposed.

BackgroundIn recent years, numerous disappointing clinical outcomes of antioxidant supplement have been reported for various oxidative and nitrosative stress-related diseases. These failures of antioxidant supplement in preventing/treating diseases have become a major hurdle in the therapeutic application.Scope and approachThis paper described the current status of antioxidant supplement area, and reviewed briefly the important progress in developing probes or sensors for real-time imaging of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS) in recent years. We then explored the potential of these probes or sensors for real-time imaging of ROS and RNS as new avenues to directly assess whether antioxidants work or not in vivo.Key findings and conclusionsExamining whether or not antioxidant can counteract oxidative and nitrosative stress in vivo is crucial to overcome the hurdles in the antioxidant supplement area. We proposed that the recently developed probes or sensors for real-time imaging of ROS and RNS provided a valuable avenue to assess the antioxidant efficacy in vivo. Future directions and potential barriers to overcome for clinical translations of these probes or sensors were discussed to direct antioxidant supplement study.